


Sweat

by butmostlymeo



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Romance, everlark, promptsinpanem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 15:03:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butmostlymeo/pseuds/butmostlymeo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tired of his mother’s jabs about his weight, Peeta Mellark finds an ally in personal trainer Katniss Everdeen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweat

His mother hadn’t stopped talking about his weight since she saw him at his college graduation. It had started with little jabs disguised as jokes. Every time she hugged him she would laugh and say she could barely get her arms around his stomach. When he posed for pictures with his diploma she would yell out “Stick your chin out! You don’t want ten of ‘em!” Peeta wasn’t stupid. He knew he had put on some weight. He had easily put on twenty-five pounds in the last five-six months. Everyone else around him was busy applying to grad school or perfecting their resumes for job interviews, but Peeta knew exactly where he was going after graduation, and that was back home to begin the processes of taking over the bakery. He felt a little left out, but at least he didn’t have the pressure his friends did. He just had to pass his classes and graduate with a degree in marketing and communications, so he took his last semester in college as a free pass to get all the partying out of his system.

Soon a beer gut began to develop, but he didn’t think anything of it. He spent most of his days in sweatpants or athletic shorts. It wasn’t until he tried to close his favorite pair of jeans in March did he realize something was different. Peeta tried to fit a few trips to the gym in his normal routine. It sometimes worked but other times he found himself doing something else (usually drinking or playing video games – he only had a few months of the college life and he would be damned if he was going to waste them. He was going to be working his ass off soon enough. He figured the weight would come off naturally.)

Well, his mother didn’t want to wait for the weight to come off naturally and Peeta soon became tired of her remarks. They were no longer disguised as jokes, but rather were cutting and offensive. One afternoon when he was sitting in the office of the bakery working on the books for July she referred to him as lazy and Peeta had had enough.

“Look, if you’re tired of seeing my fat ass around here every day why don’t you buy me a gym membership. I can’t really pay for one yet considering you’re barely paying me anything, but judging from these,” he shook the paper in his hands, “I’d say you can afford it. Maybe even some personal training sessions. That way someone can be there with me, give me some pointers. Motivate me instead of just making me feel shitty about myself. I’d say that sounds like a pretty good deal don’t you?” Peeta said as he stood from the desk and walked past his speechless mother.

“I’ll make some calls,” he yelled back at her.

—————-

That was how he ended up at Anytime Fitness one Monday morning waiting on a Katniss Everdeen. He had taken his mother’s credit card and signed up for a month long trial membership and three personal training sessions with the first person available. That person happened to be Katniss. She didn’t bother with any formalities when introducing herself. She just got straight down to business, asking him questions that were on a form in her hand. She didn’t even look up from the forms she was holding when he introduced himself and completely missed Peeta’s outstretched hand. She was focused on a clipboard in her hands.

“So, what are your goals? Why do you want to be doing these personal training sessions?” she asked, her voice monotonous. Peeta chuckled, his nerves getting the better of him.

“To get my mom off my back?” he said, questioning himself for his goals. What were they? Yeah, he wanted his mom to stop picking on him, but was that it?

When she finally looked up and her clear grey eyes locked onto his blue ones, he gulped and felt a heat rising in his face.

Goddammit, he hadn’t even started the workout and he was already breaking a sweat.

He had to stop himself from checking her out. She looked to be about twenty-two or twenty-three. She however, had no qualms about running her eyes down Peeta’s form and he suddenly wanted to die from the shame. He’d never minded his weight too much. It primarily manifested in a small beer gut and a double chin, but with Katniss’s eyes on him he felt like a gluttonous monster.

“Is that all?” she asked, barely hiding her contempt. She was focused on her clipboard again, making notes.

“I mean also you know, to get in shape, be healthier, those kinds of things,” he said as quickly as he could.

“What I mean is, are we focusing on weight loss, weight training? What do you want?” she said curtly as though he was wasting her time.

“Uh, weight loss,” Peeta answered, a blush overtaking his face.

Her eyes met his once more before she turned around.

“C’mon, let’s get started.”

Her long, dark hair was pulled into a high ponytail but fell down her back in a braid. With her back to him he took this opportunity to really look at her. Or at least her backside. . She was only in Nike shorts and a loose white t-shirt, Which he found odd, considering most of the other women in the gym were in yoga pants and tank tops but he could still tell she was in really good shape. They stop in front of a treadmill. She didn’t even look at him she just kept her eyes on the treadmill screen.

“I want to start here. Walk for five minutes. Run for five minutes. Walk another five, run another five, then we’re gonna add incline. Does that sound good?”

“Sounds great,” Peeta quickly replied, her eyes flitting to him. She gave him a nod and stepped back expectantly. He hopped on the treadmill and he felt her eyes on him the whole time. If that wasn’t motivation, he didn’t know what would be.

After an hour and a half with Katniss, Peeta was dripping with sweat. He was glad he brought a change of clothes with him because he was hitting the shower as soon she released him.

“Okay, so you have two more sessions scheduled with me. One Thursday and one a week from today. Do you feel like you got a good workout today? Like this is something that’s going to help you reach your goal?” Katniss asked as he chugged from his water bottle. He had just finished a series of squats, crunches, and push-ups.

“Definitely. I haven’t worked that hard in a long time. Of course, I think that was the first time I’ve really worked out in six months.” Peeta said with a chuckle. He would swear he saw one corner of Katniss’s lips quirk up.

“Well, then I expect you to work even harder next time,” she said before bidding him goodbye. Peeta watched her walk away from him. She had done a few of the exercises with him and he could see where the back of her shirt clung to her skin with sweat. He swallowed and decided that a shower was definitely needed.

—————

The next time he worked out with Katniss, much of the workout was the same, except she had him do a few more weights this time around.

“Okay, I think we’ve established that you don’t need as much weight training as you do cardio,” she said after the workout. He had just finished his final set on the bench press.

“What do you mean?” Peeta asked, genuinely confused. He didn’t know a lot about fitness, but the more muscle tone you had, didn’t that make cardio more effective?

“We’re still gonna include it, but you don’t need as much as I originally thought. You’re quite muscular. Very strong. You can lift… a lot,” Katniss said, beginning to stammer. “But that means that you have the strength to do even more cardio and make it more effective!” Katniss finally managed to get out. Peeta nodded, glad he wasn’t quite as clueless as he originally thought.

“Working at a bakery requires a lot more manual labor than one would think,” Peeta said. Katniss smiled at this. Peeta mentally high-fived himself for this victory. He got a smile, directed at him.

“You work at a bakery?” Katniss asked him, her voice a lot softer than he had heard it before. He was used to her coolly telling him what to do and gazing at him with her steel-colored eyes as he tried to perform each activity.

”Yeah, my parents own it. I’m actually going to take it over in a few years. Right now I’m learning all the ins and outs of running the business.” Katniss looked impressed.

“Cool.” Katniss took a breath before continuing, “Well now we just have to step up the cardio.” And just like that they were back to business.

After the next session Peeta immediately scheduled five more sessions with Katniss to last him through the first month.

—————-

Peeta was trying to ignore Katniss’s stare, but it was becoming increasingly harder to. He was on the stairmaster and he could feel her eyes on him. Today she had seemed especially distant. She led him over to machines and would simply mutter the amount of time she expected him to be on it. His last couple of sessions had gone really well, with Peeta able to elicit a few more smiles out of Katniss. Sometimes he would crack a lame joke and raise his eyebrows at her, but other times he would find her looking at him with a half smile that would disappear as soon as she caught his eyes on her. He finished up his workout and when he hopped off the machine and ran his towel over his face. He found that he felt more satisfied by her smile than by the smaller number on the scale. So today, could be considered a disappointment. She hadn’t engaged him in small talk, which she always did even if he could tell that in the beginning she hated it, but it had come more naturally the past couple sessions. And today she sent a total of zero smiles his way, which made his motivation drop. He was on the stairmaster for twenty minutes but it might as well have been twenty hours without any encouragement with Katniss.

They walked over to the area where they finished each session with crunches and squats.

“Remember to keep your core tight,” she kept repeating as he did each set. He sat up after the last of his crunches and made eye contact with Katniss.

“So I know you’re working out, but are you doing anything with your diet?” She asked, not looking at him. For some reason she had trouble looking at him when he wasn’t working out. Peeta’s heart sank.

“Uh kind of?”

“I just ask because you’re showing results, but I wonder if there’s anything more you can do to help with your weight loss goals. I mean I’m sure working in a bakery isn’t exactly conducive to dieting,” she said.

“Excuse me?” and just like that her eyes were on his.

“Huh?” was her only response.

“I work at a bakery. I don’t eat everything in the bakery,” he said, her words stinging like a slap in the face. She had never once mentioned his weight. She would talk about certain exercises being good for weight loss and targeting certain areas but never once made him feel like he needed it, like he should feel ashamed of his body. And his shame began to wane. He had lost fifteen pounds in the past month and a half but it wasn’t just that. It was easier to ignore his mother’s remarks (even as they dwindled as the weight fell off) when he felt like he had someone in his corner.

“That’s not what I meant,” Katniss said with a sigh.

“Then what did you mean? I don’t eat the food at the bakery because I’m trying to sell it. I’ve stopped drinking as much because I’m not in college anymore, but no I don’t watch every bite that goes into my mouth and I probably never will. “ Peeta said as he stood up from the mat and began to gather his things.

“And you say you want to lose weight?” Katniss fired back.

“Not at the cost of my sanity. Yes, I joined this gym to lose weight and I decided to use a personal trainer to help motivate me and show me the ropes. And I stayed with you because I like you. I think you’re really helpful and great. You don’t feed my ego but I know when I’m doing well because I can see it on your face.” Katniss’s mouth fell open and then she immediately clamped it shut. “I thought it was nice that you didn’t constantly talk about results, just hard work. It made me focus less on the results and more on what I could do. I didn’t realize I was such a disappointment to you.” And with that Peeta left the mat and stormed out of the gym without so much as a glance at the front desk receptionist who bid him goodbye.

—————-

He was shocked when he heard her familiar voice from where he was sitting in the back office of the bakery at the end of the day. Especially to hear her voice asking for him. He had already attempted cancelling his next scheduled session but he couldn’t bring himself to go through with it. He stepped out from the back and saw her standing there talking to his mother who was behind the counter. He wasn’t used to seeing her in street clothes or with her hair down. But there she was in jean cutoffs and a striped shirt with her hair in waves around her face. Her eyes widened when she saw him and she lowered her head.

“Hey mom, can you give us some privacy?,” Peeta asked, never taking his eyes off of Katniss. Peeta’s mother sighed in exasperation.

“Remember, we’re closing in ten minutes so make it quick,” she said stalking into the back. Katniss looked back at him and an awkward silence fell between them.

“I’m sorry!” Katniss finally blurted out. “I’m sorry. I should never have made any sort of comment, especially one I didn’t even mean. I just realized that day that I had really been slacking on my job, which is my fault not yours. In fact, you’ve been doing great but I guess I just got too comfortable. Normally, I overthink every client’s workout and eating regime, but with you I didn’t. Things just seemed really simple. And you were always so good with whatever instructions I gave. I don’t know, that day I just felt like I was letting you down so I tried to figure out how to step it up. I really didn’t mean to insult you and your work,” she said, inhaling deeply after the words spilled from her. Peeta grinned.

“Do you want to get out of here?” he asked. Katniss rewarded him with one of the smiles that he collected like prizes.

——————-

He suddenly felt very self-conscious about drinking around her, eating around her. She was his personal trainer. Wouldn’t she scold him for wasting all his hard work on a beer? Maybe he should have ordered a light beer? Or maybe that would have made him look like a pussy. She insisted on buying since she was the one apologizing. He watched her walk back to their table holding two glasses filled with ice-cold draft beer. It wasn’t even fair how good she looked.

“You said you didn’t care so I just got us Shiner,” she said, placing the glass in front of him as she dropped into the chair across from him. He smiled at her and wrapped his hand around the glass. Her hand paused as she was bringing her own beer to her lips.

“You have really nice teeth,” she blurted out and then immediately brought the glass to her lips and started gulping her beer as her eyes darted around as if wondering if anyone had overheard her.

“Thank you,” Peeta replied as his grin widened at her statement. She glared at him.

“Okay, there’s no need to get cocky,”

“No, it’s just that was the first compliment you’ve ever given me.” Peeta said.

“It is not,” Katniss shot back. Peeta tipped his head back and laughed.

“No, it definitely is. You usually just tell me what to do and then at the end of every session you tell me to work even harder next time. I mean, it certainly is motivating, but not exactly what I would call complimentary,” Peeta said with a chuckle. Katniss frowned at his words.

“I hope you know how proud I am of you,” she said quietly and now it was Peeta’s turn to look around awkwardly.

“Yes. I’m extremely proud. You work very hard every session and I can tell that you’ve been following a diet, present company’s treat excluded,” she winked at him and that small action left Peeta glad that his lower half was hidden under the table.This was what he was telling his dick at least, as it tried its best to make its presence known. She continued, “But what I think is the best is that you care, but you haven’t made losing weight your life.”

“What do mean?” Peeta inquired. Katniss sat up straighter and took a sip of her beer.

“Like you work really hard. I can tell,” she said this and reached out to lay her hand atop his. She squeezed his hand. Yup, this was not helping his situation. “But you always seem to be able to leave any real life problems at the door and vice versa. You still have a real life. Plus, I rarely see you at the gym outside of sessions.”

“I thought that would be a bad thing.” Peeta raised his eyebrows. “Shouldn’t you want to see me going of my own accord?”

“Not when I keep getting paid,” she said saucily. Peeta laughed at this and Katniss blushed and ducked her head.

“Okay, what I’m trying to say is, you have a life. And you seem happy. There are some people at the gym every day for hours, and sure their bodies look great, but I wonder what they do with the rest of the time. Do they read any good books? Do they ever just take a three hour nap for the hell of it?“

“Do they ever eat something without calculating exactly how many hours of exercise it’ll take to burn it off?” Peeta added. Katniss smiled brilliantly at him and this time it was Peeta’s turn to blush. Was she actually commending him for his less than perfect work ethic when it came to his exercise schedule? He usually got caught up at the bakery or joined some friends for a game of basketball (which definitely counted as exercise- right? Right.) that he wouldn’t go on days he didn’t have a session with Katniss. But he hoped she knew he would never miss a session with her. He would never want to. Seeing her was the best part of his week.

“Aren’t you being a little hypocritical?” Peeta teased. “I mean you are at the gym for hours everyday.” Katniss stuck her tongue out at him.

“It’s my job.” Katniss laughed. “If I wasn’t getting paid to be there, there’s no way I would stay cooped up. It’s just so artificial.”

“How did you get started there exactly?” Peeta asked. He leaned forward and cradled his chin in his hand, elbow on the table. He studied her and caught her looking at him, her eyes trailing his shoulders and arms down to the beer in his hands. Katniss brought her eyes back to his. It felt so nice to feel her eyes on him while talking, not just on an elliptical machine.

“Honestly, two or three years ago I taught archery at a summer camp here in town and worked as a waitress the rest of the time. Well, some camp mommy who goes to the gym heard that archery was really good for the arms and shoulders and begged for there to be classes. She set the whole thing up and the gym contacted me. It was a really popular class until the next fad exercise took over,” Katniss looked Peeta dead in the eye. “Zumba.” She shuddered. “Anyway the gym then asked if I wouldn’t mind getting certified to be a personal trainer since some people still wanted classes on the side of their normal workout routines. So I did. And now I’m here.” She drained her drink when she finished speaking.

“Well I’m glad you are,” Peeta said. He swore he could see a faint blush on her cheeks.

“Can I ask you a question?” Katniss asked.

“Sure,” Peeta nodded.

“So that was your mom?”

“Is that your question?” he chuckled.

“Kind of. So that’s your mom? The one who made you want to lose weight?” she asked tentatively. Peeta gulped his beer and nodded.

“Well, you might have been able to tell, she’s not exactly the kindest woman. She was never one of those moms who told me I’m perfect just the way I am. After I gained so much weight last semester she wouldn’t stop with comments and glaring at me every time I put any kind of food in my mouth. So I actually did start dieting and I lost about five pounds, but that wasn’t enough for her.”

“I’m sorry. God, now I feel even worse,” she said.

“Don’t. You’ve been great. Well, except that one time…” Peeta trailed off dramatically and Katniss kicked him under the table, which only made him laugh harder.

“Really though? You… like me?” Katniss asked timidly, lowering her head so her hair fell forward and covered part of her face.

“What?” Peeta choked on his beer.

“At our last session you said you liked me. Did you mean it?” she asked again.

Peeta smiled and nodded.

“Yeah. I like you.”

“Well, I like you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the fourth round of promptsinpanem. I'm on tumblr as mereditheo so come say hi! Thanks to parachutesfromhaymitch for pre-reading and beta-ing!


End file.
